Americans are debating bitterly the proposed building of a mosque near New York's ground zero, but for years Muslims have prayed quietly at the
Pentagon only 80 feet from where another hijacked jetliner struck.

Pentagon officials say that no one in the military or the families of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has ever protested.

Gingrich, Polls, Daisy Kahn, Origin of Idea, Other Sites Considered

Daisy Kahn explains around 5:10 in this report (all of which is enlightening, by the way) how the idea for the community center came about and when
and tells of other property they attempted to buy first. The followings study supports her premise as to how to integrate into the community and halt
radicalization.

Here are some more facts about him too. It's a blog, but it's enough to kick off
someone's additional research. Noteworth items:

In 1997, he founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement to promote a more positive integration of Muslims into mainstream American
society. His efforts and profile rose dramatically after the 9/11 attacks when a calm voice was required to explain why greater Islam did not embrace
terrorism.

Republican John Bennett, president of the Aspen Institute, was so impressed by the imam's message that he became a co-founder of the Cordoba
Initiative which seeks to promote cross-cultural engagement through the Cordoba House in downtown Manhattan.

In November 2004, Feisal Abdul Rauf participated in a round table discussion on religion and government, gaining the respect of U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Antonin Scalia.

Feisal Abdul Rauf was dispatched on speaking tours by the past State Department on multiple occasions to help promote tolerance and religious
diversity in the Arab and Muslim world. In 2007, he went to Morocco, the UAE, Qatar and Egypt on such missions for the State Department. In February
2006, meanwhile, he took part in a U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar with Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes.

"There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how
is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she said. "How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something
we've been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and
two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City." (h/t Kristinn) Calls to investigate the funding for those proposing the
$100 million "Cordoba House" have fallen on deaf ears, though, as New York's Mayor Mike Bloomberg has described such an investigation as
"un-American." Ms. Pelosi called the Ground Zero mosque an "urban development decision" for New Yorkers to work through. Her remarks happened on
the heels of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, parting ways with President Barack Obama on the issue. Mr. Reid suggested the mosque
should be built somewhere else.

With Republicans trying to wrest control of Congress from Obama's Democrats, and facing a tough re-election battle of his own, Senate
Democratic Leader Harry Reid broke with the president over the issue Monday , saying the mosque should be built elsewhere.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also entered the fray, saying Tuesday she supports "looking into how is this opposition to the mosque (is) being
funded."

Other Information to Try to SourceThe False Equivalence: St Nicholas Orthodox Church

The issue with St Nick's is complicated beyond what is being implied here. They have been in arbitration and negotiations with the Port Authority for
years about a land swap deal, for money.

The Port Authority wanted the land St. Nick's stood on for a security center for JP Morgan Chase and other buildings also in negotiation for ground
zero. And there's probably more to that story than even that. www.observer.com...

But brilliant PR on someone's side to link this to the Islamic center, which had no such land swap or financial issues to deal with, is not dealing
with the Port Authority or other financial issues, and is not even remotely the same situation.

The Imam and Hamas
This was the imam's FULL answer in the context about the question of Hamas.

'Look, I'm not a politician. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question. … There was an attempt in the '90s to have the UN define what
terrorism is and say who was a terrorist. There was no ability to get agreement on that. … I am a peace builder. I will not allow anybody to put me
in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy.'

Next, an op-ed also from the NYTimes about the complexity of Islam and the Imam's branch of Islam (Sufism):

But in the eyes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, he is an infidel-loving, grave-worshiping apostate; they no doubt regard him as a legitimate
target for assassination.

For such moderate, pluralistic Sufi imams are the front line against the most violent forms of Islam. In the most radical parts of the Muslim world,
Sufi leaders risk their lives for their tolerant beliefs, every bit as bravely as American troops on the ground in Baghdad and Kabul do. Sufism is the
most pluralistic incarnation of Islam — accessible to the learned and the ignorant, the faithful and nonbelievers — and is thus a uniquely
valuable bridge between East and West.

We are not the extremists. We are that vast majority of Muslims who stand up against extremism and provide a voice in response to the radical
rhetoric. Our mission is to interweave America's Muslim population into mainstream society. We are a Muslim-American force for promoting the
universal values of justice and peaceful coexistence in which all good people believe.

What has grieved me most over the past few months is the blatantly false reporting that has led some victims' families to think that this project is
somehow designed by Muslims to gloat over the attacks on 9/11.

First, nice video, although the idea that Pres. Obama is the person who turned this issue into a political football when he talked about it last
weekend is a bit nuts. But it was nice for once to actually see the site the way it looks to New Yorkers -- like a too-long-abandoned discount store
on a side street away from the WTC site.

Second, I'm starting to wonder where the "contractors/unions won't/don't take the jobs" meme originated.

I'm not sure where that meme came from. I noticed it first about three weeks ago in a few random comments on blogs, and even a few comments here last
week. It seems to have picked up a lot of steam. I'm posting one video I found of an interview with a union worker.

Agreed that the video was pretty good. If you do a Google street view too, you can see there are quite a few buildings higher than 13 stories on that
block and the one next to it. You can take a virtual stroll around the neighborhood.

By the way, the latest touchy subject with the likes of Pamela Geller seems to be that it's FIFTEEN stories...two underground she adds. I think her
ad is being torn apart and it's a touchy subject. Here's a vid showing that (in case I didn't post it already (I'm losing track a bit today). The
meat of it is at about 1:58. Now it's a mega-mosque too.

WASHINGTON - The Ground Zero imam is off on a taxpayer-funded trip to tout America in the Middle East - and he's been warned not to pass the
collection plate for the mosque.

"We've told him he will not do any personal business," a senior State Department official said of the two-week tour through wealthy gulf oil states
by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. The official business is promoting religious freedom and tolerance.

One month after launching a jaw-dropping campaign of racial discord and warning of a looming, Obama-led "race war," Fox News and the far-right
media have turned the page of the hate hymnal and embraced a new enemy: Muslims.

Yes, the bigotry is off the charts. Yes, the purposeful misinformation is almost too plentiful to catalog. And yes, once the again the mainstream
press remains mostly mum about the upsetting spectacle being played out for all to see.

We should continue to avoid the phrase "ground zero mosque" or "mosque at ground zero" on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this
wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at
ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s "near" ground zero, or two blocks away....

Military.com|by Bryant Jordan
A career Soldier and general officer who helped build up Iraqi forces after the U.S. invaded that country says critics of the proposed Islamic
community center in New York City are only hurting American military and national interests.

"It's counterproductive to paint all Muslims as part of the problem out there and to contribute to [terrorist] recruiting efforts," retired Army
Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton told Military.com in an Aug. 18 interview. "You don't want to turn [Muslims] into the enemy because we generalize on
everything that happe

Both Daily show pieces on the issue so far are linked just above your post

I agree they're pretty good. He tackled it again tonight, yes, but the
clips aren't up yet and I have it recorded to watch. Good to know.

The Olbermann piece is pretty powerful as well. Have you seen that one?

And MediaMatters (two links above) does a decent job of debunking Hannity's smearing of the imam. They are also calling FoxNews out on Muslim
bashing.

Also, a few posts up, I think there's both an article and a video about Muslims praying in the Pentagon, since 2002, I believe it was that Bush
authorized this for all faiths.

There are very common threads here in the hearsay and speculation that this entire campaign is built on. The organization here in thread format is not
ideal, but once we collect all the information, the plan is to categorize it.

Pat Robertson has also spoken out (lied) about the Islamic center in lower Manhattan, so this is tangentially related. In response to Pat Robertson's
lies about the Islamic center in Murfreesboro, TN, the mayor speaks out. I think we might have a prime agitator in Robertson, don't you?

Pat Robertson in a televised appearance on his Christian television show, "The 700 Club" made comments today regarding the new Islamic Center in
Murfreesboro, TN. He expressed his belief that Muslims were taking over, would force girls in school to wear head dresses and that county officials
had been bribed or paid off in order to approve the proposed new site of the mosque. Rutherford County Mayor, Ernest Burgess, made these comments when
I visited his office later that same day.

Gingrich, rather than accept his has-been status and fade away gracefully, has decided to reinvent himself as the American Geert Wilders, the
Dutch politician who has made a career out of stigmatizing Muslims and campaigning to impose legal restrictions on the immigrant Islamic community.
Wilders, who was refused entry to Britain on the grounds that they don’t let hate-mongers in, will have no trouble gaining entry to the US on
September 11, when he’s a scheduled speaker at the hate rally. He’ll stand alongside Rep. Peter King, the New York Republican congressman whose
history of palling around with the Irish Republican Army would seem to make him an unlikely speaker at an “anti-terrorist” event.

Glenn Beck at FoxNews has just gotten embroiled in the Wilders water too BUT Geller
is worried.. Fox is removing the first
video below from YouTube. Here's one that remains. Beck's interview with Wilders in 2009.

1. America missed a golden opportunity to showcase its Constitutional freedoms. The instinctive response of Americans should have been the same as
President Obama's: Muslims have every right to build there. Where one religion can build a church, so can all religions.

2. The First Amendment comes down to this: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It does not come
down to: "The First Amendment gives me the right to repeat the N-word 11 times on the radio to an inoffensive black woman, and when you attack me for
saying it, you are in violation of my First Amendment rights."

3. The choice of location shows flawed judgment on the part of its imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf. He undoubtedly knows that now, and I expect his project to
be relocated. The imam would be prudent to chose another location, because the far right wing has seized on the issue as an occasion for fanning
hatred against Muslims. It has also narrowly reframed the project as a mosque, rather than a community center with a prayer room, which is what it
would be. To oppose it on the grounds that it is Muslim is religious prejudice and nothing else. The Muslims who attacked the World Trade Center are
not the Muslims who are building the center.

4. One buried motive for the attacks on Park51 is exploitation of the insane belief of 20% of Americans that President Obama is a Muslim. Zealots like
Glenn Beck, with his almost daily insinuations about the Muslim grandfather Obama never knew and the father he met only once, are encouraging this
mistaken belief.

5. The Bill of Rights has a parallel with pregnancy. You can't be a little pregnant, and you can't be a little free. Nor can you serve yourself from
it cafeteria style.

6. Somewhere on the Right is an anonymous genius at creating memes. Sarah Palin floats a suspicious number of them: Death Panels, Ground Zero Mosque,
9/11 Mosque, Terror Babies. Her tweets are mine fields of coded words; for her, "patriot" is defined as, "those who agree with me." When she says
"Americans," it is not inclusive. These two must have been carefully composed in advance to be tweeted within 60 seconds of each other:

By using the evocative word "shackles" she associates Dr. Laura's use of the N-word with the suffering of slaves. By implying Dr. Laura was
silenced by "Constitutional obstructionists," she employs the methodology of the Big Lie, defined in Mein Kampf as an untruth so colossal that "no
one would believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." She uses the trigger word "reload" to evoke her support
of Second Amendment activists while attacking "activists" for evoking the First.

7. Many Americans and a great many politicians have either never taken a civics class or disagree with what they should have learned there. The major
opinion sources in America that seem to devote the most attention to the Bill of Rights are Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, all distorting it
as an everyday practice. Bill O'Reilly, to his credit, doesn't indulge in this.

8. A meme is infecting our society that Muslims are terrorists and hate America; they are the enemy. It is a cliche to say, "the vast majority of
Muslims are peaceful," but is true. When Muslim nations are bombed by America, can those nations be expected to applaud? In Iran after 9/11 there
were candlelight marches in sympathy with the United States.

9. I find hope in the words of two American strippers interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. Cassandra, who works at New York Dolls, just around the
corner from the proposed community center, said she worried that calls to prayer might wake up the neighbors. The WSJ writes: "But when she was told
that the organizers aren't planning loudspeakers, she said she didn't have a problem with the project: 'I don't know what the big deal is. It's
freedom of religion, you know?'"

Chris works in the Pussycat Lounge, even closer to the site. When the airplanes struck the World Trade Center, Chris became a Red Cross volunteer
working with survivors. The WSJ writes she "sat on a barstool in a tiny, shiny red dress and defended Park51. 'They're not building a mosque in the
World Trade Center. It's all good. You have your synagogues and your churches. And you have a mosque.'" Chris lost eight of her friends on Sept.
11, 2001, firefighters from the Brooklyn firehouse she lived next to at the time, but "the people who did it are not going to the mosque."

Cassandra and Chris reflect American values more instinctively and correctly on this issue, let it be said, than Sarah Palin, Howard Dean, Newt
Gingrich, Harry Reid and Rudy Giuliani, who should know better.

10. I wonder how many Americans realize the community center is not intended for Ground Zero. What will be constructed there includes a 55,000 square
foot retail mall. This mall will be deep enough to connect with subway lines -- deep enough, that is, to theoretically be embedded in the ashes of
some of the 9/11 victims.

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